KITCHENER -- A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared at a Waterloo Region summer camp after a camper tested positive.
The region's online COVID-19 dashboard shows that there is one case at the camp. Like the public health guidelines for long-term care and retirement homes, one case is enough to declare an outbreak in these settings. The dashboard does not identify which camp was affected.
"That case is in a child who attends the camp, but we won't be providing any more specifics because camps can be relatively small in terms of numbers so we can protect privacy," said Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang during a Tuesday morning media briefing.
"All potentially impacted families and staff are informed and public health and follows up with case and contacts, and usually the camp operators will then send out information to make sure parents get the information they need."
She also said that the camp does not necessarily have to shut down because there is an outbreak there.
That depends on whether there is a need to cease activities based on exposure to staff and other campers. In some cases, if the outbreak only affected one cohort, then others would be able to continue as long as there was enough staffing to continue. In this case, the camp did not close down.
Dr. Wang said that the camp has a mandatory mask policy, and that, because of the community spread of the virus, the child may not have contracted COVID-19 at the camp.
Across the board, the region reported five fewer active cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.
The region's dashboard that there was one additional case reported on Monday, but the total number of cases dropped by three as the region continues to adjust to the new provincial reporting system.
There have now been a total of 1,438 cases of COVID-19 in Waterloo Region. That number includes 1,283 cases that are considered resolved and 120 deaths, leaving 35 active cases.
The region is still reporting one active outbreak at a long-term care home. Golden Years Nursing Home in Cambridge had an outbreak declared on Aug. 18 after one resident tested positive for COVID-19. One person at that facility has died.
The region also reported that 2,590 new tests had been done since Friday's update, or a little more than 647 tests per day. To date, testing partners in Waterloo Region have done 66,315 tests.
As a whole, Ontario reported its fifth day in a row of triple-digit case numbers with 100 new cases. That marks a slight decrease from the 105 recorded on Monday.
Ontario has now seen 41,607 positive cases of COVID-19, including 37,748 resolved cases and 2,800 deaths.
The province's health minister, Christine Elliott, said on Twitter that more than 20,000 tests had been done in the last 24 hours.
